Edmonton Oilers relieves the regular season on Wednesday evening in San Jose and wants to complete a sweep of their season series with the sharks.
Edmonton (47-29-5, 99 points), locked in the third seed in the Pacific Division, has won all three meetings this season, with San Jose which limits the sharks to two goals per match.
Wednesday is the third meeting between Sharks and Oilers this month. Edmonton edged San Jose 3-2 in Bay Area on April 3 and doubled Sharks 4-2 last Friday at Home Ice.
Oilers comes from a 5-0-ice loss on Monday to Los Angeles Kings-Deara’s first round of opponents in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“Our goal was to make the playoffs, it was our first goal and then leave,” Edmonton said forward Corey Perry. “We know who we play. We open up on the road, so we go out and do a job on the road.
“This is not the first time or the last time we will open a series on the road,” he continued. “We have been decent along the way and we know how we just play a boring hockey style.”
Calvin Pickard made 31 rescues in the loss when Edmonton played without top scorer Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman and Blue-Liners Mattias Ekholm and Jake Walman.
Ekholm (Undisclosed Injury) will miss the first round of the playoffs, while McDavid and Hyman could play Wednesday in San Jose. Draisaitl is expected to be ready for game 1 against Los Angeles.
Pickard is 22-10-1 in 36 performances this season with a 0.900 savings percent and a 2.71 goal-for average.
Fellow goalkeeper Stuart Skinner is 25-18-4 in 50 matches and publishes a .894 Savings percentage and 2.87 GAA.
San Jose enters the season finale and wants to unpack the schedule on a winning remark.
The sharks (20-49-12, 52 points), at the end of the total position, is Winless in 10 straight (0-7-3), with its last victory coming March 27 against the Toronto Maple Leafs in a shootout.
On Monday, the sharks were lined 2-1 on overtime by Vancouver Canucks.
Macklin Celebrini, the top election in the NHL draft 2024, scored the lone goal for San Jose, and Alexandar Georgiev made 35 rescues.
Georgiev is 7-18-4 in 30 matches this season and publishes a .873 Savings percentage and 3.95 GAA.
Celebrini, whose 25th goal came on a Power Play, has a team -leading 63 points in 69 matches this season.
“I thought we were competing,” said the Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky. “I thought we had a pretty good effort. I just think our brains were not there, which I do not know if it is expected or not, but it is the National Hockey League, so your brains must be on. But for us to be in the hockey game and gave us another chance to win one and just came up a little short again.”
Tyler Toffoli goes San Jose with 30 goals in 77 competitions, while William Eklund leads the road with 41 assists in 76 matches.
San Jose forward Zack Ostapchuk and Thomas Bordleau and defender Jan Rutta and Jack Thompson are all daily after being injured in Sunday’s 5-2 loss to host Calgary Flames.
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